HVO Did Not Hold Varda

The Defence invited Anton Bulajic, former operational officer with the 111st Brigade of HVO, to explain which military lines were held by those forces, with special focus on Varda, which, as alleged by attorney Ivica Bodul, Prosecution witnesses mentioned several times.   

Bulajic explicitly said that HVO units never had any buildings at Varda and that they did not hold the area, because it was mined.

“We found out that Serbs mined Varda, so we did not hold it, despite the fact that it was a strategically important location,” the witness explained.
 
At the beginning of the hearing the Defence announced that it would prove that the names of people, locations and events mentioned in the indictment were illogical and unreal and that a mistake was made when identifying the indictee.   

Martic, former member of HVO, is charged with having taken a group of captured members of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, from a school building in Perkovici to an HVO-held position in July 1993. When they arrived, he abused them and hit them on various parts of their bodies with a rifle butt and shot at two of them.
 
Witness Bulajic, who was tasked with arranging the military lines and defence actions in the southern sector, specified that Ljeskovica and Bistrica were three and four kilometres away from Varda, while the military dispensary in Bistrica village was 16 kilometres away from the hospital in Perkovici.

The Defence is due to examine another witness about the similar circumstances at the next hearing scheduled for September 22.